Aftershocks (38 page)

“When the weak propose something, the strong may say it is unacceptable,” Atvar told him. “When the strong propose something, the weak may say only, ‘It shall be done.’ Who here is strong? Who is weak? I suggest you think carefully on this, Ambassador. If you reject both these demands, we shall have war. Regardless of the damage it may do us, it will destroy you. Do you understand?”

“I understand, Exalted Fleetlord,” Lodge said, still calmly.

“Then I dismiss you,” Atvar said. “You had better make sure that your not-emperor understands. Unless he complies with the Race’s just demands—and they
are
just demands, without the tiniest fragment of doubt—we shall visit ruination on his not-empire.”

Henry Cabot Lodge rose and bent at the waist—not the posture of respect, but about as close to it as wild Big Uglies came. “I shall convey your words to President Warren. Shall we meet again in two days’ time?”

Atvar glared at him. “You are using this delay to increase your armed forces’ readiness to resist us.”

“No, Exalted Fleetlord.” Lodge shook his head. “We have been at maximum readiness for some time. The only way we could be more ready would be to start the fight ourselves. That, I assure you, we do not intend to do.”

“Of course not,” Atvar snarled. “We would be ready if you did. You could not strike a stealthy blow this time.”

Lodge bowed again and departed without another word. That left the fleetlord feeling vaguely punctured. As soon as the Tosevite had left, Pshing came into the office. “Any progress, Exalted Fleetlord?” he asked.

“None.” Atvar made the negative gesture. “None whatsoever.” He sighed. “We shall be fortunate to avoid another war, and this one far worse than that which we fought against the Deutsche. The American Big Uglies refuse to give up their clawhold on space, and they also naturally refuse to yield up a city to our wrath.”

“Did you expect them to yield one?” Pshing asked.

“No,” Atvar answered. “I intended to use that threat to get them out of space and to reduce their weaponry, which would let us dominate them hence-forward even if they stay nominally independent. But they plainly perceive the long-term danger in that course of events. If they refuse us, however, the danger is not long-term but short-term.”

His telephone hissed. Pshing hurried out to answer it in the antechamber. A moment later, he called, “Exalted Fleetlord, it is Fleetlord Reffet.”

Atvar wanted to speak to the leader of the colonization fleet about as much as he wanted to have an ingrown toeclaw cut free without local anesthetic, but realized he had no choice. With another sigh, he said, “Put him through.”

Reffet looked angry. That was Atvar’s first thought when he saw his opposite number from the colonization fleet. Reffet sounded angry, too: “Well, has that cursed Big Ugly caved in to our demands yet?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Atvar answered.

“All right, then,” Reffet said. “We just have to blow his stinking not-empire—stupid name for a piece of land, if anybody wants to know what
I
think—clean off the surface of Tosev 3. Those Tosevites deserve whatever happens to them, after what they did to us. A bite in the back, that is what it was. Nothing but a miserable, treacherous bite in the back.”

“Truth,” Atvar agreed. “If we fight them now, however, they will without a doubt bite us in the front several times. Their not-empire is far larger and is also more populous than that of the Deutsche. Their military preparedness is not to be despised. And, if we get heavily involved in fighting them, the Russkis may indeed bite us in the back.”

“And whose fault is that?” The question from the fleetlord of the colonization fleet was rhetorical. He was convinced he knew whose fault it was: Atvar’s, and no one else’s.

With a sigh—how many times had he sighed on or in orbit around Tosev 3?—Atvar answered, “If you must blame anyone, blame the planners who sent a probe to this miserable world sixteen hundred years ago and assumed it would not change in the meanwhile. A probe a hundred years before we set out would have warned us and saved us much grief. I have already recommended that this be made standard practice in planning any future conquest fleets.”

“Wonderful,” Reffet said. “This does us exactly no good now, of course.”

“I agree,” Atvar said. “Have you any constructive suggestions to make, or did you call just to complain at everything I am doing?”

The fleetlord of the colonization fleet glared at him. “I have already made my suggestion: punish these Big Uglies with every means at our disposal.”

“I asked you for constructive suggestions,” Atvar replied. “That is a destructive suggestion. How destructive it turns out to be, we will know only after the fighting ends.” He held up a hand before Reffet could speak. “You will tell me it is more destructive to the Big Uglies. Again, I agree. It had better be, anyway. But it will hurt us, too. However much you may wish to scratch sand over it, that also remains a truth.”

Reffet hissed in frustrated fury. “Will you let these Tosevites get off without punishment for their crime, then?”

“By no means.” Atvar used an emphatic cough. “I am trying to arrange a punishment for them that will not involve damage to the Race. If I can do that, well and good. If I cannot . . . I will take whatever other steps I deem necessary.”

“You had better,” Reffet said. “If you fail here, the effort to depose you that Straha led will look like a hatchlings’ game.”

Atvar supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised at a threat like that. Somehow, he still was. Having gone through such humiliation once, did he really want to face it a second time? Did he have any choice? If he did botch this negotiation with the Americans, wouldn’t he deserve to be overthrown? He said, “I hear you, Reffet. Since you admit you have nothing constructive to contribute, I bid you good day.”

“I admit nothing of the—” Reffet began. Atvar took savage pleasure in breaking the connection and cutting him off in mid-squawk.

After that, he had to deal with minutiae: the eternal rebellion in China, the equally eternal rebellion in India, a new outbreak in the subregion of the southern part of the lessen continental mass called Argentina. All of those would eventually be solved, and none of them, even unsolved, was more than a nuisance to the Race. Atvar issued directives confident that, regardless of whether they were right or wrong, the world would go on. He had margin for error.

He had none with the American Big Uglies, and he knew it. He had to keep the pressure on them, and had to do so in such a way that he resisted the pressure from his own extremists. Two days later, as promised, Henry Cabot Lodge returned to his office. “I have a proposal for you from President Warren,” Lodge said, and set it forth.

When he’d finished, Atvar said, “Are you certain you understood him correctly? Is he certain of what he is doing?”

“Yes and yes, respectively,” Lodge replied. “He requests one additional item: personal foreknowledge—not much, but a little—of the precise timing. Your intelligence resources will be able to make sure that the United States does not use this for any untoward purpose.”

“I had not expected—” Atvar began.

Lodge cut him off: “Does this proposal meet with your approval or not? If not, I see no way to avoid war.”

Atvar had never imagined that a Big Ugly could squeeze him. But he felt squeezed now. He stared at Lodge. The Tosevite kept his face very still. His impression after pondering was the same as it had been at first scent: he would never get a better offer from the Americans. His left hand shaped the affirmative gesture. “I accept,” he said.

Jonathan Yeager had never been so glad to sit on the couch in his own front room watching a baseball game. Having his father sitting there beside him made all the difference in the world. Sam Yeager had his legs crossed. He took a swig from a bottle of Lucky Lager, then returned it to its resting place on top of his upper knee. It stayed there quite happily; the hollow in the bottom of the bottle fit the curve of his knee very well. Whenever Jonathan tried such things, he spilled beer or soda on his pants.

The Kansas City batter lashed a double to the gap in left-center. Two runners scored. “That makes the score 5–4 Blues, as the Yankees’ bullpen lets them down again,” Buddy Blattner shouted from the set.

“They overthrew the cutoff man,” Jonathan’s dad said. “If they hadn’t, the Yankees might have nailed Mantle as he rounded second—he was thinking triple, but he had to put on the brakes.”

Barbara Yeager said, “You pick apart ballgames the way I was trained to analyze literature.”

“Why not?” Jonathan’s dad said.
“I
was trained to hit the cutoff man on a throw from the outfield, no matter what. I didn’t have the talent to make the big leagues—especially after I tore up my ankle—but I always knew what I was doing out there.”

Before anybody could say anything more, the baseball game disappeared from the TV screen, to be replaced by a slide with the words
URGENT NEWS BULLETIN
. “What’s this?” Jonathan said.

Chet Huntley’s long, somber face replaced the slide. It looked even longer and more somber than usual. “In an assault apparently launched without any warning to U.S. authorities, the Race has detonated a large explosivemetal bomb above Indianapolis, Indiana,” he said. “Casualties, obviously, are as yet unknown, but they must be in the tens, if not in the hundreds, of thousands.”

As the picture cut away from Huntley to show a toadstool cloud rising above some city or other—it might have been Indianapolis, or it might have been stock footage—Jonathan and his parents all said the same thing at the same time: “Oh, Jesus Christ!”

“They’ve paid us back,” Sam Yeager added. “It was this or get out of space forever and turn oven most of our weapons. Those were the terms Atvar set. I didn’t think we’d do it this way, though.” He emptied his beer in a couple of long, convulsive gulps.

Chet Huntley reappeared, but only to say, “Now we’re going to Eric Sevareid in Little Rock for the administration’s response to this unprovoked attack.”

It wasn’t unprovoked, as Jonathan knew only too well. And when Sevareid came onto the screen, his face, normally as dead a pan as any newsman’s, was wet with tears. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, President Earl Warren has just been found dead in a Gray House bedroom. He appears to have died by his own hand.”

Again, Jonathan and his father and mother said the same thing at the same time: “Oh, my God!”

Eric Sevareid said, “The presidential press secretary has before him a statement that he will read to the nation. We will also be hearing from Vice President—excuse me, from President—Harold Stassen as soon as he can be found and informed of the dual tragedies of the day. The vice president—excuse me again, the president; that
will
take some getting used to—is on a fishing trip in his home state of Minnesota. And now, Mr. Hagerty.”

The camera cut away from Sevareid and over to the briefing room of the Gray House. James Hagerty blinked under the bright lights. He licked his lips a couple of times, then said, “As what seems to have been his final living act, President Warren wrote by hand the statement I have before me. He set it where it would surely be found when he was sought after the destruction of Indianapolis. He was, by that time, unfortunately deceased. These are, then, the last words of the president of the United States.”

“I never thought he’d do this,” Sam Yeager said. Jonathan and his mother both hissed for him to be quiet.

“ ‘My fellow citizens, by the time you hear these words, I will be dead,’ ” James Hagerty read. “ ‘The demands the Race has made upon the United States of America have left me in a position where I could not in good conscience accept either of them, but where rejecting them would have resulted in the destruction of our great nation.’ ”

Hagerty blinked and licked his lips again.
He’s getting all this for the first time, too,
Jonathan realized.
Poor bastard.
The press secretary went on, “ ‘And yet, there was justice in the Race’s demands upon us, for it was at my order that rocket forces of the United States launched explosive-metal-tipped missiles against twelve ships of the colonization fleet not long after it took up Earth orbit. I and no one else am responsible for that order. I still believe it was in the best interest of mankind as a whole. But now my role has been discovered, and my country and I must pay the price.’ ”

Jonathan’s father cursed and grimaced. Jonathan’s mother patted him on the shoulder. Jonathan himself hardly noticed. He was staring, transfixed, at the television screen.

“ ‘Fleetlord Atvar presented us with a dreadful choice,’ ” Earl Warren’s press secretary read. “ ‘Either withdrawal of our weapons and installations from space and the great reduction of our ground- and sea-based weapons systems—essentially, the loss of our independence—or the destruction of a great American city. “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” If neither of those, then war, war we could not hope to win.’ ”

Hagerty paused to wipe his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket. “Excuse me,” he said to the millions watching. Then he resumed: “ ‘I could not, I would not, sacrifice our future by reducing our installations as the Race demanded. And I could not lead us into a war where, however much we might hurt the foe, the United States would surely suffer the fate of the Greater German
Reich.
That left me with no choice but to sacrifice Indianapolis to the vengeance of the Race.’ ”

“Jesus,” Jonathan muttered. He wondered what he would have done in Warren’s shoes. The devil and the deep blue sea . . .

“ ‘Having made that decision,’ ” the press secretary continued, “ ‘I also decided that I . . . could not live when the men, women, and children I had sacrificed were dead. I hope I may find forgiveness in the hearts of the living and in the sight of God. Farewell, and may God bless the United States of America.’ ”

James Hagerty looked up from the podium, as if about to add a few words of his own. Then he shook his head. His eyes overflowed with tears again. Fighting back a sob, he hurried away. The camera lingered on the empty podium, as if unsure where else to go.